Molson Coors drives sales with SAP CRM

Molson Coors is the world's fourth largest brewer; it employ 15,000 staff across 30 countries, producing over 65 leading brands.

It recently implemented an SAP landscape to enable both control and long-term growth. Central to this is Molson Coors' concept of "Brilliant Execution", enabling excellence in customer engagement with SAP CRM.

The business challenge

Consumer Products organisations are experiencing significant challenges in maintaining market share and remaining profitable. Particularly in the brewing sector, traditional volume markets are in real decline, with pubs closing in their hundreds per annum, and home drinkers watching their spending.

In response to this, Molson Coors identified the need to improve customer acquisition and retention, to improve customer experience by putting customers first, enable brand portfolio expansion into the customer base, and improve productivity within their tele-business units. However, these initiatives could not be supported by the existing IT infrastructure and associated business processes.

"As a business we didn't have strong operational transactional performance, so it was difficult to quantify success. The greatest opportunity to be gained from an SAP CRM implementation was the access to insightful data around performance, the chance to put a programme of corrective actions in place and a focus on continuous improvement."
Sally Surgay, Key Business Lead for SAP CRM, Molson Coors

The solution

Molson Coors embarked on a significant programme to implement the appropriate technical solutions, business changes and process revisions. SAP ECC was chosen to provide the core logistics and finance functions; SAP APO for robust Supply Chain planning and execution; and SAP CRM to coordinate all customer-facing functions, including those of partner organisations.

The project was delivered using Bluefin Solutions' agile implementation methodology. Delivery was focused around the themes of Collaboration, Visualisation and Iteration. An environment was created where key business staff could collaborate in design via a common business language, visualise the solution as it evolved through the build phase and have the opportunity to iterate through the cycle as fresh business opportunities emerged.

"Greater involvement and influence drove business ownership months in advance of user testing and go-live. Crucially, this reduced risk as our business users were confident in the content of what was delivered as well as knowing how to use it and test it at a detailed level. This led to the business teams championing the solution from day one, with maximum buy-in and minimal issues."
Sally Surgay, Key Business Lead for SAP CRM, Molson Coors

Business benefits

The new SAP CRM system enables Molson Coors to drive customer sales, gain increased efficiencies throughout the call centre operation, deliver excellence in customer service and realise wider total cost of ownership (TCO) savings.

The SAP CRM Interaction Centre now controls the call centres. The benefits of an integrated solution come into play, with outbound call list generation, sales order capture, promotion execution, service ticket entry, complaints and returns as well as operational and management SAP BI reporting capability.

The solution provides Molson Coors with the platform for future strategic initiatives - to better understand current performance, create a single controlled way of working, and provide the flexibility and agility to exploit opportunities.

Driving customer sales

Contact centre agents now capture a weekly average of 10,000 sales orders directly into an integrated SAP Order to Cash cycle (CRM Lean Order Management interface)

Improved customer experience

Customers benefit from conversations relating to one version of the truth

Measurement of service issue resolution within SLA is enabled.

Working with Bluefin Solutions?

"Bluefin Solutions was chosen as a key implementation partner based on its track record of successful SAP CRM implementations and because Bluefin Solutions demonstrated outstanding technical knowledge and the interaction with the business was exceptional."

"A measure of project success is the development of the individuals; the super-users involved in the project all gained something from it that either enhanced their career or their confidence, and every single one of them would willingly participate again - and that, I believe, is down to the Bluefin Solutions culture and approach."
Sally Surgay, Key Business Lead for SAP CRM, Molson Coors